# Is it possible to ingest data from external web service in Kibana?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [July 19, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776 "2018-07-19T15:32:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![heenaI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9fc29f/32.png) [@heenaI](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/heenaI)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776/1 "2018-07-19T15:32:12Z")

</div>

I would like to visualize data coming from an Api of an external web service reachable via http call. I wonder if it is possible to populate kibana with this data? Do I have to setup an elasticsearch index first for something like this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jbudz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jbudz/32/45922_2.png) [@jbudz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jbudz)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 7:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776/2 "2018-07-19T19:45:18Z")

</div>

The short answer is yes, Kibana will function best if the data is in elasticsearch. [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-inputs-http.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/plugins-inputs-http.html) might be worth looking into if logstash is part of your setup.

Timelion has limited support for external data sources, but you'll likely have to write a plugin.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![heenaI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9fc29f/32.png) [@heenaI](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/heenaI)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 11:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776/3 "2018-07-20T11:39:09Z")

</div>

Thank you for the reply. What kind of plugin would I have to write? Can you point me to some kind of documentation for this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jbudz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jbudz/32/45922_2.png) [@jbudz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jbudz)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776/4 "2018-07-20T20:46:57Z")

</div>

A kibana plugin that registers more data sources with timelion. Here's an example of one: [https://github.com/rashidkpc/timelion-random](https://github.com/rashidkpc/timelion-random).

We have our plugin docs at [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/plugin-development.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/plugin-development.html).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-ingest-data-from-external-web-service-in-kibana/140776/5 "2018-08-17T20:47:01Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.